The Story of a Life Part 2

CHAPTER III.

A KENTUCKY BOY.

It was while the black nurse was doubtfully shaking her head over the prospect of a long life for Mattie Myers, that two boys presented themselves at the village schoolhouse of May's Lick, Kentucky. They were two brothers who resembled each other so closely, and were so inseparable, that they were often thought to be twins. Oliver Carr, however, was two years younger than Owen[2]. They had come up from the country in the old family barouche, and the fact that they were from the country, was shown in their movements and their dress.

Their father, while still on the farm in Lewis County, had declared, "I will educate my children, if I don't leave them a cent when I die." That is why he sold his farm to invest the proceeds in town property at May's Lick; and that is why Owen and Oliver are presenting themselves at the door of May's Lick Academy. The family that had just moved to town, consisted of William Carr and his wife, and their four sons and three daughters. Of the children, the only one essential to this narrative is he who gave his name to the teacher as Oliver A. Carr--better known in his family and among his young companions as "Ollie."

The year was 1857. Of all the proud towns of Kentucky--proud of blood and wealth--no city was prouder than May's Lick. Not even Lexington, five counties to the southwest, thought more of her high birth, her fine horses, her opulence, than did this little May's Lick of Mason County.

The schoolmates of the Carrs were the children of the wealthy. The boys came to school in red-topped boots, riding prancing ponies, and were waited upon by their black bodyguards. The girls were petted, and spoiled, clad in dainty apparel, born to refinement and a nicety of taste, intolerant of whatever appeared to their sensitive minds as "common." Nor was this superiority of manner merely superficial. Beneath the gleam of showy beauty, there was the gold of culture.

Naturally enough, these children of the rich, whether on the play-ground, or in the school-room, stood aloof from Owen and Oliver,--or as they were called "Bud and Ollie." In the first place, they were newcomers; again, they were awkward and their clothes were made from the same piece of their mother's weaving; and their father had purchased one of the two hotels in town. "He works, himself!" it was said, with pity, or contempt. And the sentiment against William Carr because his work was not done by slaves, was reflected against his seven children.

But William Carr, rugged and unyielding, firm in his belief that education would place his boys and girls on a footing with the best, conducted the hotel, while his wife, patient and tireless, sewed long after the hours of the day's inevitable work were ended. To clothe and educate seven children while all the time one's cashier is stealing systematically--that is the problem!

It is a problem that little concerns the lads of the red-topped boots and prancing ponies, or the girls of fine laces,--still less the fathers of these; for all their spare time is spent in reminiscences of Henry Clay, and in defining differences between the North and South--for this is 1857, as we have said, and in a few years something may happen.

But it is not given to every boy to wear red-tops, nor to every girl, real lace. Of course there were other families falling under the supercilious cla.s.sification of "those who do their own work." At such times as the Carrs were not studying, or reciting to L. P. Streater, or helping at home, companions were to be found, to bear a hand at a game of marbles. Oliver had the genius of making friends; and, when no artificial barriers interposed, his gentle nature thawed the ice in natures most reserved.

Sometimes it happened that, as Oliver and his friends were engaged in sports along the roadside, they would see a venerable man drawing near, smooth faced, broad browed, stately in bearing, kindly in expression. If it chanced to be a time of heated altercation, the warning would go round--

"Hush! hush! There comes Brother Walter Scott."

The old man would pause with, "Well, dears, how do you do, this nice morning? Are you on your way to school?"

Then he would pat one on the head, and say a pleasant word to all. In his presence ill-humor melted away, and evil purposes were corrected. It was not only so with the school boys, but with their fathers. His very presence seemed a rebuke to wrong-doing and wrong-thinking. Sometimes he came to the Academy and addressed the pupils. Oliver stood at the head of the cla.s.s in mathematics. One day after reciting geometry, "Elder"

Scott, as he was called--or "Brother" Scott--said, with that gracious smile which lent the aspect of perennial youth to his wrinkled face,

"Young gentlemen, you have made good progress in Euclid." It was the first time Oliver had ever heard of Euclid, but he knew the enunciation of every proposition in the first five Books, and had drawn the figures with elaborate care on his father's barn door! But he had not studied Latin.

"That language," said his practical father, "is dead!"

The almost daily meeting with Walter Scott was one of those formative influences, unperceived at the time, which help to shape one's ideals.

Let us look for a moment at this benign figure with his gentle smile, his keen, penetrating glance, and his still almost raven-black locks. He had brought to the Kentucky village an atmosphere of the great outside world, for he was a man who had not only come in touch with the great and ill.u.s.trious, but who had himself partic.i.p.ated in great affairs.

It meant much to the young mathematician at May's Lick Academy, this daily intercourse with such a man. It inevitably raised his mind above the daily toil, the unstimulating routine of a small town; it gave him a certain outlook upon a wider life, suggesting higher things than had hitherto entered his experience.

This venerable Walter Scott--he who had held little Mattie Myers upon his knee--was a man in whose veins flowed the blood of Wat, of Hardin--most ill.u.s.trious of Scottish heroes. He was kin to the creator of _Ivanhoe_ and _Rebecca_; a man who had graduated from the University of Edinburg; who had sailed the seas and traveled in many distant scenes; whose music instructor had been the friend of Sir Ralph Abercrombie; who had been by turn teacher, preacher, editor, author; who had traversed the circular avenues of poplars and pines leading to the mansion-house of Henry Clay, trees "which made me fancy myself once more in Scotia"--and who had sat in Clay's parlor in charming intercourse with the statesman while the portrait of Washington looked down, and the elegant simplicity of the apartments presented nothing "to make poor men afraid, or rich men ashamed;" who had ridden on the steamboat with the distinguished companionship of General Schuyler's daughter, the widow of Alexander Hamilton, then in her eighty-fourth year; who had visited the home of Colonel Richard M. Johnson; and who, finally, had come to May's Lick to pa.s.s the remainder of his days.

It was natural enough that the very sight of this man should suggest to the studious youth, thoughts of greatness and of travel. His kinship to Sir Walter Scott and his familiarity with the lands beyond the seas, no doubt lent him a sort of halo, to the imagination of boyhood. But it must have done more than this; it must have suggested that one need not remain poor and unknown; and that, as Walter Scott, when a poor young man had lifted himself above his condition by means of his education, so might Oliver Carr.

The postoffice was in William Carr's hotel. William was the postmaster, and during vacation, or at intervals, Oliver served as deputy. After the arrival of the mail, the distinguished scholar, Walter Scott, would appear at the counter with his benignant smile, and his "Dear--" he called all young people thus--"Dear, is there anything for me, this morning?"

And Oliver was as pleased as he, when there was a _Louisville Courier_ to hand his friend, or a letter from Ohio, or Pittsburg, or New York.

There remains a word to be said as to what this Walter Scott was; for, after all, where one has traveled, or whom one has met, speaks little of the inner self; and it was this personal value of the man that counted most with those he met.

It was in 1819 that Walter Scott landed in New York, and began teaching Latin in Long Island--diverting himself with his flute at the close of the day. But he soon felt the call of the West, and obeyed it afoot. It brought him to Pittsburg, where he found himself drawn into school work again. He became an a.s.sistant in the Academy conducted by Mr. Forrester, a fellow-countryman. Scott had been reared in the Presbyterian faith, and his soul had been perfectly satisfied in those religious grounds staked off by his denomination's creed. He had not a.s.sociated long with Forrester before he found to his amazement that the latter, though apparently of sincere piety, did not subscribe to all the articles; but, instead of seeking to attack the Confession with the Discipline or the Prayer Book, had recourse to the Bible. Not only so, but Forrester professed himself ready to give up any article of faith that did not appear fully warranted by the Scriptures; or, in other words, he had resolved to be guided in religious matters by the Bible alone.

It is difficult for one of the present day to realize how radical, unheard of, and unorthodox, such a determination as Forrester's appeared in the year 1819. It is true that men here and there, in places far removed from one another, were beginning to weary of the burden of the creeds; they were reaching out to grasp something that might pull their feet from the shackles of doubt or predetermined d.a.m.nation, and in desperate blindness they seized upon the Word of G.o.d as likely to prove of most avail. It was, indeed, heresy; for if all had deserted creeds for the Bible, what would have become of the creeds? In Luther's day it had been heretical to decry Indulgences; if a Baptist, it was heretical not to believe "in the peculiar and eternal election of men and angels to glory," and "in a particular redemption of a definite number of persons to eternal life," and "the final perseverance of the saints in grace to the end."

Walter Scott felt no hesitation in joining Forrester in his studies of the New Testament, secure in the belief that nothing could be found there, inconsistent with his creed; henceforth, we find him sitting far into the night, no longer solacing himself with the music of his flute, but studying the Bible with ever greater and greater perplexity; studying it as diligently as ever he had studied the Confession; studying it with increasing uneasiness, as it seemed to lead him from the faith of his fathers.

There was, at that time, no body of a.s.sociated men who had agreed to surrender all creeds, and take the Bible as their only guide. There were isolated examples of such men. Alexander Campbell, of whom Walter Scott had never heard, had been forced by his convictions from the Presbyterian church into the Baptist a.s.sociation. Not long after the beginning of Scott's explorations into this dimly-known field of original research, he and the celebrated scholar met; but neither had a thought of breaking away from the accepted religious bodies; the only question was to find the one nearest approximating the truth, and to seek reformation within that body.

The result of that effort to bring back the primitive church upon earth, is seen today in the church of the disciples of Christ. This is not the place to argue the feasibility of the plea, or to adduce arguments against it. But what that plea was, should be presented clearly and dispa.s.sionately. It is not the office of the biographer to point out the right or wrong of his subject's dominating ideas, so much as it is to show how the life was influenced by those motive-springs of thought.

Walter Scott, as an evangelist, pastor, author and editor, had come into contact with tens of thousands, and had influenced countless lives. His followers were called by the unsympathetic, "Scott.i.tes," just as those of Alexander Campbell were nicknamed "Campbellites." Thomas and Alexander Campbell and Walter Scott, the triumvirate of the dawning "Reformation," did not come, however, to found denominations, but, so far as they could, to do away with them.

They believed that it was possible for the church of New Testament days to exist in the modern world, just as it had existed then. They believed that the means of entering the church now, are what they were then; that Christ's conditions were in their very nature of divinity, unalterable. As Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, so Walter Scott preached in the Nineteenth Century. As Cornelius and the jailer and the eunuch and Lydia and all other recorded instances of sinners converted in olden times, so man today, in turning to G.o.d, must turn as they turned, come as they came, obey as they obeyed.

And if the old order should be restored, there would be but one order in the earth; but one Faith, one Lord and one Baptism. The saints would sit down to one table from which no saint would be excluded; they would join their hymns of undenominational ecstasy, and, if they did not see every subject exactly alike, they would at least agree in their contemplation of essentials. After all, the important matter seemed to be, to get safely into the church, and to stay in it; and if all entered in the same way, the way the apostles had taught, and then dwelt in harmony, not as Presbyterians and Baptists and Episcopals and Methodists, whose very names appeared to draw lines, whether the lines were definitely understood or not--this ideal body would be simply disciples of Christ, or Christians, as they had been eighteen hundred years ago. Then indeed would a shout of thanksgiving go up from the earth, that the prayer of Jesus had been answered; not only his apostles but all those who now believed on his name, had become one; one in thought and love and life; one as he and the Father were one, eternal, indivisible.

Whether or not the reader believes such a union possible, or desirable, it will surely call for no great task of the imagination upon his part, to enter somewhat into the thrilling rapture this picture presented to the hearts of the early "reformers." One feels his heart leap with a sympathetic throb when men who had dreamed of such a return to the old paths, but who had dreamed of it in solitude, not knowing it had found a voice in the earth--suddenly heard it p.r.o.nounced from the pulpit. Men who had brooded in seclusion over their Bibles, finding there, as it appeared to them, sublime statements antagonistic to sectarianism, were suddenly transfixed by hearing the words of old, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved!" It seemed to them that the "Old Gospel" was once more sounding in the land. On a visit to Missouri, Walter Scott met an eminent preacher, Moses E. Lard.

"You do not know me," said Lard, as he threw his arm about the other; "but you are the man who first taught me the Gospel."

"How so!" the other inquired.

"It was reading your book--'The Gospel Restored,'" was the answer.

That is how this movement appeared to those who came under its influence,--the Gospel must be restored. The preachers proclaimed and debated from the rostrum, and pulpit, and on horseback. The laymen talked about it on the street, and in the field, ready at any moment to draw the Bible from their pockets to show just what the "Old Jerusalem Gospel" had to say for itself. The women discussed regeneration and baptism over their sewing and knitting. The children taunted each other at school and at play, and the swaggering bully might say to the despised "Campbellite," "_We_ believe in a change of heart!" or "_You_ believe water will save you!"

Such taunts, however, did not a.s.sail the young Carrs, for their parents belonged to no church, and their grandparents and numerous relations were Presbyterians and Methodists. Oliver's teacher, L. P. Streator, was a disciple of Christ; his life, as well as that of Walter Scott, were arguments, in their way, for the "new religion"; but after all, Oliver had thought little of religion during his first years at the Academy.

Martin Streator, his teacher's son, persuaded him to attend the Sunday-school at the Christian church; he went once or twice, and then tried the Baptist Sunday-school to find out what "they did over there".

The teacher of the Baptist cla.s.s devoted his hour to an explanation of the Holy Ghost, which proved so baffling to the young mathematician, that for some time thereafter he discharged no religious duties.

Across the street from Carr's Hotel, was a blacksmith shop. The smith was an Englishman, Eneas Myall. Fifteen years before William Carr drove from Lewis County in the old barouche, Myall had come over from England, and had stood on dry dock with only twenty-five cents in his pocket. He walked twelve miles to find work; needless to say, he found it. He earned the pa.s.sage-money from England for his father, two brothers, and cousin. All worked together; the cousin was a wagon-maker, and under the newly made wagon-wheels, as they rested upon their trestles, were the shavings that had curled up at the making. In the cold dark mornings, when young Oliver came down stairs to make his fires, the flames leaped up from these very shavings, which he had carried over the evening before. They liked him at the shop, and Eneas, in particular, believed he read an expression in the thin face of the ambitious student, that promised something better than a hotel life.

Eneas was a Christian; [3]he and his two brothers and his cousin had all heard the Gospel preached by R. C. Ricketts, as they had never heard it in the old country. Over there, to escape the formalism of the Church of England, they had listened to the Dissenters; they had watched sinners hovering on the Anxious-seat of the Presbyterians, and the Mourning-bench of the Methodists. Such ante-rooms to Grace were held indispensable. As the eminent Congregationalist, Dr. Finney explained, so nearly all believed: "The church has always felt it necessary to have something of this kind. In the days of the apostles baptism answered this purpose. The Gospel was preached to the people and all who were willing to be on Christ's side were called on to be baptized. It held the precise place that the anxious seat does now, as a public manifestation of their determination to be Christians."

But Eneas and his relatives had been called upon by the preacher, not to come to something which served the same purpose as an inst.i.tution of old, but to the inst.i.tution itself. "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit!" This was the trumpet call of R. C.

Ricketts. To the simple blacksmith, it sounded like a voice long silent, issuing from the sacred past. He had never heard it proclaimed before.

He and his obeyed the call. Having entered upon the Christian life, this blacksmith felt an inexhaustible enthusiasm for the cause. He had been made so happy by his acceptance of what opponents called the "new religion" that he wanted all his friends to partake of his happiness.

When W. T. Moore came to May's Lick to raise funds for Bethany College, the first college of the disciples,--Eneas took his old rusty pen and wrote "$100."

Moore, in surprise, looked at the stalwart form in its rude garb, and then at the homely scene in which it seemed in keeping. "This is more than you ought to give!" he exclaimed. "How do you make it?"

"Oh," said the blacksmith, casting the pen aside, and lifting his hammer, "I beat it out of this iron! It is such a good cause, I'm sure I can give $100.00."

That was when Oliver was fifteen. W. T. Moore was holding a meeting at the church, working up the college endowment during the day. One evening, when Oliver entered the shop, as he did daily, seeking his kindling, Ed Myall looked up from his work, and said, "Ollie, isn't it time for you to be a Christian?" He would have said more, but his voice failed him. The boy, without a word, turned and went away. It was the first time anyone had ever spoken to him about being a Christian. He had dropped out of the Sunday school; he rarely attended church.

His sister Minnie was the first of the family to become a Christian. She repented; she confessed her faith; she was baptized; and then she became a missionary, thus: She met Oliver in the hall, as by accident--such matters come hard to the young and inexperienced--and said, "Ol, I want you to be a good boy!"

That was all; but he knew what she meant. The opportunity to go to church was not wanting, for Mr. and Mrs. Carr were always ready to take the work in hand for that purpose. They wanted the children to go to church, though, to be sure, they would have preferred the churches of their fathers. So on Sunday, Oliver went to church and heard W. T. Moore preach the first sermon he had ever understood. The same points were preached over and over, "What must I do to be saved?" And after that, when Oliver was driving pa.s.sengers to and fro, or hauling wheat to market, he was thinking incessantly over what he had heard, that question of old,--"What must I do to be saved?" and then of the answer, as it had come from the lips of Peter and Silas and Paul. And he made the resolution, "Next Sunday, I will do what I think right!"

He asked his father's permission to "join the church." "If you know what you are doing," said William Carr, "go ahead."